Tired of dragging your parish kicking and screaming from one level of joy and freedom to the next? Try motivating parishioners through a Strategic Initiatives Fund.

1. A Strategic Initiatives Fund
for an Orthodox Christian Parish
Stewardship AdvocatesTM

2. What are Strategic Initiatives?
Strategic Initiatives (SI) are one or more finite-
duration discretionary projects and programs,
typically outside the parish’s day to day
operational activities, designed to help the
parish achieve heightened performance,
increased growth or improved service as regards
mission fulfillment. SI are often characterized by
agile and rapid opportunism, innovation, and
reasonable entrepreneurial risk-taking – perhaps
a behavioral mode somewhat unusual for a
contemporary Orthodox parish – but not at all
unusual for the New Testament Church.

3. What is a Strategic Initiatives Fund?
A Strategic Initiatives Fund is a restricted account
specifically dedicated to fund or partially fund
sudden opportunities for parish development or
for innovative and entrepreneurial new ideas,
approaches, projects and programs to fulfil the
mission of the parish. The Fund is not to be used
to underwrite items in the operating budget of
the parish but the fund may finance ways in
which traditional ministries of the parish may be
expanded or reconfigured for more effective
mission fulfillment. Parishioners, ministries or
organizations may apply for a grant from the
Fund. Read on for more information.

4. Strategic Initiatives
• They are strategic because they express the
intention of the parish leadership to exercise a
choice for a preferred future
• They are strategic because they are aligned with
mission fulfillment
• They are strategic because they look beyond
immediate need to long term benefits

5. Strategic Initiatives
• They are initiatives because they define and
encompass actionable goals and objectives
• They are initiatives because they seize opportunities
• They are initiatives because they are entrepreneurial
and risk-taking for new projects and programs that
spiritually transform community values and behavior
• They are initiatives because we pray for a meaningful
return on investment (only occasionally measured in
dollars) from an initial investment of time and money

6. Substantiating a Strategic Initiatives Program (1)
The authors of the New Testament did not write in
Hebrew – the language of the culture which gave birth
to Christianity; nor did they write in Latin, the language
of the occupying military force; nor even in Aramaic, the
language that Jesus spoke. They wrote in Greek!
Because it ensured a wide distribution of the gospel and
general comprehension by many more hearers who
could not read. Thankfully, they were entrepreneurial
risk-takers with vision.

7. Substantiating a Strategic Initiatives Program (2)
St. Paul, though a Jew with extraordinarily impressive credentials
regarding his Judaism, preached to the Gentiles and to the Jews
in the markets, the forums, the synagogues, the towns, the
cities, in boats, in prison, by letter and through messengers –
basically anyway he could. He went into cities seeking converts
where the message of the gospel had never been heard before.
He preached where there was dangerous and threatening
hostility. He traveled the Middle East, Turkey, Greece, the
Balkans, Crete, Malta, Rome and he dreamed of going to “The
Pillars of Hercules” – Gibraltar and Spain. He was entrepreneurial
with a readiness to “…become all things to all people so that by
all possible means I might save some” (I Corinthians 9:19)

8. • Newton’s 1st law, applied to a parish, states that a parish
at rest (complacent, in maintenance mode) will remain
at rest.
• Newton’s 2nd law states that a “force” is needed to
accelerate a mass at rest, or in our case, launch a
complacent parish into dynamic forward motion.
• Strategic Initiatives represent a viable force, tempered
by judicious and wise implementation, that accelerates a
parish into motion (action - new programs; growth - new
members; improvement - better service; enrichment -
spiritual development; thereby overcoming inertia and
the all-too-common resistance to change.
Substantiating a Strategic Initiatives Program (3)

9. Examples of Possible Strategic Initiatives
• Initiating a never before attempted evangelization program in the
parish to bring new and fallen away people to church by sending
committee member to evangelical training seminars (radical
thought, I know)
• A potentially very important piece of real estate contiguous with
the present property suddenly comes on the market
• Several of the Orthodox churches in your city decide to get
serious about ministry to college aged youth and discuss a full
time coordinator or purchasing a house for OCF activities, etc.
• Retaining a second priest so that more time may be given to
outreach, teaching, visiting, counseling, etc. – basically giving
more dedicated time to spiritually developing the community.
• A well-publicized festival of Orthodox or near-Orthodox films
sponsored by the parish for education, outreach, evangelization
and re-branding of the parish beyond the festival and the boring
annual media announcement of a different date for Easter

10. Where do Strategic Initiatives Come From?
• The long-deferred dreams and aspirations of the priest
• The forward-thinking members of the parish council – those not wedded
to hide-bound custom
• Ministry heads who hold responsibility for well-performing programs
• An existing long-term plan where objectives are free-floating items on a
wish list
• Any parishioner with a viable, well thought-through idea that has a
reasonable chance for good results
• Reading books on nonprofit development
• Visiting dynamic and successful churches to learn and then to apply what
is possible to apply in an Orthodox environment.
• Scouring Stewardship Advocates Library – plenty of ideas there!
 The whole idea is to create a parish culture where advancing Orthodoxy
and fulfilling mission through innovation and risk-taking is welcomed and
supported

11. Three Types of Parish Strategic Initiatives
• What a parish does manifests its default and de facto strategy
even if done unthinkingly and unintentionally. This can be
summed up by identifying the projects and programs in which it
invests funds, personnel and energy
• Into this matrix may come three types of strategic initiatives:
1. Programs and projects that work in the parish for a specific
segment of the parish (mostly, but not completely, these may
consist of ramping up traditional and established ministries)
2. Overarching programs and projects that work on the parish as
an organic entity with community-wide application (new
technology, advanced education for the priest, leadership
training, parish council development, surveys, planning, etc.
3. Working to transform the parish (retreats, pilgrimages,
lectures, new property, heretofore non-existent programs)

12. Funding the Strategic Initiatives Program
• Parish Council and finance committee must buy into the concept
• Needs to be a line item in the parish budget each and every year
to ensure a continuous income stream – do not tie it to
operational items
• Consider an annual fundraising event to increase the funds
available – though it’s not the most effective way to raise money, a
fundraising event keeps the SI program alive and in the
consciousness of parishioners
• Personally approach the well to do, especially those
entrepreneurial types that would immediate grasp the potential of
such a program and ask them for an annual gift of $5,000 -
$50,000, depending upon the size and giving horizons of the
prospective donor and the capability of the funding community –
even a couple of thousand dollars in the fund makes it work; but
impact may be more limited
• Regularly report on success and results of the SI program to the
parish to keep interest and continued funding high

13. Managing the Strategic Initiatives Grant-Making Process
• A sub-committee of the parish council handles the process
• Priest and parish council decide allocation of grants and
investment of the funds with recommendations from sub-
committee
• Grant proposal process with guidelines for filling out forms – no
guarantee that the project will be funded but the better the
proposal, the better the prospect of receiving a grant
• Description of the project, goals and objectives, budget, expected
outcomes and results, personnel involved including qualifications,
accountability, reporting procedures, research conducted, etc.
Don’t make it too onerous but insist upon proper planning
• The plan for continued funding if the proposal is for an ongoing
program after the initial grant? (Suggestions: if it proves viable
then get it in the budget; it’s a project that makes its own money;
recruit sponsors to fund it.)

14. For additional information related to
Orthodox parish development on
fundraising, strategic planning, leadership,
management, etc., access the Stewardship
Advocates Library. There you will find a
variety of sample surveys, articles,
Powerpoints, analytical tools, studies,
templates, growth strategies and coaching
on leadership and management.

15. Ordained in 1974; 38 years a priest; four
parishes served; B.A., M.Div., plus 30 courses
of study in nonprofit organizational
development;12 years serving as Vice
Chancellor of Advancement at St. Vladimir's
Seminary; 16 years as consultant to well over
100 Orthodox parishes and organizations;
author and editor of Good and Faithful
Servant: Stewardship in the Orthodox Church.
In 2012, at his own request, Anthony returned
to the ranks of the laity in order to receive the
sacrament of holy matrimony.
Anthony L. Scott
The Principal of Stewardship Advocates

16. Contact Information and
Additional Material
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